I make no bones about how much I hate this elusive goddamn muse everyone talks about.

“I can’t write today, my muse is missing.”

“I have no inspiration to write, my muse is being lazy.”

“I could be writing but the muse wants to watch ten episodes of whatever this tv show is.”

This inspiration that has to punch you in the frigging face in order for you to write your book is an illusion. That broad works for you. You call the shots.

This isn’t a post about how you have to write every day or you’re not a writer. This is a post about how I make the muse show up for work and half the time I send her home because I don’t need her.

“How do you come up with your ideas?” We get this one a lot, right writers? Few of us have an answer. Our brains are built that way, we think in stories. I fuel the brain to make the stories. If you have a tough time finding inspiration, try this stuff. Because getting the inspiration is great—that blast of dream sequence brilliance that suddenly turns into a book? Love it. It’s fun. But writing is my job. So I work for it. I earn that inspiration by searching for it. Here’s some stuff I do to keep the ball rolling:

I get a scrapbook. One of my favorite places to get a really beautiful one that begs to be touched is https://www.etsy.com/transaction/1029658438. I fell on the Halloween one pictured and it took my breath away—how perfectly it fit THE WIND BETWEEN WORLDS. Now I have a spot to put all the little things that remind me of my characters, and build upon. THE WIND BETWEEN WORLDS started with one picture in a magazine. Then I built upon them by asking questions. What’s the relationship between these six girls? What’s different about them? What do they DO? Who’s the strongest, meanest, funniest, etc…? And I gathered things that spoke to me about each of them and putting them together in a scrapbook helped me keep them all distinctly different, but with an overall tone, a feeling that united them.

Coincidentally, I didn’t FIND stuff to put in the scrapbook–I SEARCHED for stuff. Celeste is the Witch of Stars. Suddenly I was looking everywhere I was for stars to put in the scrapbook. Then it became that I was looking for the colors associated with her—silver, purple, blue. I’d bribe the kids to let me dig through the clearance bins at the craft store, I’d look through things I’d saved over the years that could fit in. I search eBay, Etsy, Amazon, Pinterest of course….. Things that struck me I’d ask myself why they did, and how it related to the book. Sure, maybe I’d fall for a dinosaur soup ladle and that had nothing to do with anything. But a lot of times I’d come across something I knew would be in Celeste’s bedroom, a lipstick shade I knew one of the Witches would wear, a map, a piece of jewelry, all kinds of things that would be in their world. And the scrapbook filled up. More importantly, I was ALWAYS looking for things to put in it. Every place I went provided an opportunity to add ideas, to thicken the soup. Oh, maybe the ladle had something to add after all.

I think about words. No, I’m not kidding. Words that sound good together, pretty poetry, gross words mixed with beautiful words, and I write them down. And I build around them. I heard once that you buy a piece of art and build the room around it. I do this with words. The line, “I swallowed a Hell splinter,” spawned THE HARPY. THE WIND BETWEEN WORLDS was a phrase that showed up in my head after seeing the magazine picture that gave me the idea, and I wrote around it. Write all the words down, whether they mean something or not. Then MAKE THEM MEAN SOMETHING IF YOU LOVE THEM.

I read magazines LOOKING for something to spark interest. Good interest, bad interest. A phrase, a look in the eye, colors that do or don’t go together, a picture I HATE and ask myself why, then make a character that would hate it too, etc…. But I never read a magazine just to read it. I’m LOOKING.

When I can’t think anymore and I do Buzzfeed quizzes? I take them from my characters’ points of view. You’d be shocked at what this does for me.

I have tons of this crap that I do. I won’t go into all of it here, but what I want you to get from it is that if you WANT to write, everything you do, see, think, don’t think, is story fodder. It’s all in the pot. Store shelves, movie theaters, commercials, tourist traps, museums, zoos, the post office, they all offer something. Because I want them to. No minute is wasted, but it doesn’t feel like work even though it is. I want to do it too damn badly. The muse can take notes.

I hate the dentist. So much. Every time I go, it’s an unmitigated disaster. My solution to this problem has been not to go.

Last week, I broke a tooth. I may be stubborn, but I’m also vain. It’s not a front tooth, and the damage is in the back, but still, I didn’t want everyone to know that I was complete white trash on sight, so I made an appointment with the dentist.

Long story short, my mouth is a frigging disaster. And it’s all my fault. Since I was too much of a baby to do the responsible thing and take care of my teeth. Now instead of going every six months and getting a new toothbrush, I’m going to have many painful appointments and it’s going to cost me an arm and a frigging leg. Because apparently insurance doesn’t cover you being a dumb ass.

I’m mad and disgusted with myself for letting it get to this point. Not only is it a wallet emptier, it’s a complete eye opener.

Knowing today was my day to post, I’d been thinking about what I was going to post about this weekend. We got snowed in, again. Usually, I don’t mind too much. This weekend I actually had plans. I was supposed to go see Skinny Puppy with Liz on Saturday night, but once the weather guys started throwing around terms like “blizzard conditions,” I decided to stay home. Liz, who lives in a different part of the state that didn’t get dumped on, still made it to the show. I missed in her words a “Tristan like” lead singer in the opening band who is named Lord Kalidon. You guys, he’s from freaking Italy. Hot Italian rockstars at my disposal and I stayed home and watched the Olympics. Sunday, I dug my car out and happily headed up to my chapter’s RWA meeting. Only to find it had been cancelled, once I got there.

Ugh.

A disappointing weekend, sure. A lot of time on the internet, you know it. Cabin fever has set in. I’m dreaming of adventure, Italian rock stars who are kind of like Tristan, and the warm sun. Waiting for makeup work to pick back up, mostly so I can pay my dentist tab.

You may have noticed I have a little bit of a Pinterest problem. I love Pinterest, and so doesn’t Julie. What else is there to do on a snowy weekend? We use it to relax, for book inspiration, and whatever else we feel like doing. Looking at the workout motivation boards help keep my ass working out.

But I’ve noticed a bit of a trend. Have you ever read the comments under the pins? Ugh. Pinterest is the living vicariously through others Olympics. You could start a drinking game with all the “I’d love to try thats,” “Somedays,” and “I love this but not for mes.”

The writer in me is picturing this whole crop of bubble people, who only experience life through the internet. They don’t talk to anyone face to face, they don’t go anywhere, and they don’t do anything. But they’ve had all the experiences, through other people, online.

Not cool, bubble people. Not cool at all.

The time to do these things is now! Go see hot Italian rockstars, get your teeth checked, and do things worthy of putting on Pinterest.

But how can that be, Julie? you say. You can’t cook worth shit, and you don’t crochet, and you’re possibly the most inept crafter in existence.

Well, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, and maybe you’re right, but if you’re looking for inspiration, let me tell you, Pinterest never fails me. Just before I wrote this blog I texted Kristen “What am I gonna blog about? I’m so boring.” She didn’t answer me, so point taken, Kristen. WHAT THE HELL EVER. So, I popped on Pinterest and found THIS the second I opened it up:

And I said, “OOOOOOOHH!” And I pinned it to my RUNNING HOME board, because OH MY GOD, IT’S ALMOST PERFECT FOR NICHOLAS’S HOMECOMING SCENE, AND IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT PLEASE BUY MY BOOK. And immediately I was pumped to write. (Sidenote: For those of you wondering, the RUNNING HOME sequel will be finished in the next 2 days. EEEEEEEEEE!)

But anyway, Pinterest kindles a spark in me for a lot of reasons. I’ll share with you some of my favorite pins in posts from now on. Today, I give you a smattering, things that stick in my mind and light my imagination up. Go play on Pinterest, you might be shocked what you find there.

Imagine waking up to that landing on you.

I don’t know what else to say except I want one.

I want to live here forever.

Black Swan meets vampires meets creep.

Actual place in Japan. Did you know this was real? I didn’t know this was real.

Imagine what happens in that city above. Who tht girl is, where the animal came from. Why they’re below the city. It just makes me swim with plot lines.

What a love story here.

Okay, that’s enough of me being a creep for now. This is so not even a one hundreth of what I have pinned to refer to. I saved you from the creepiest stuff, because I know my mom looks at this. But what I think the moral of the story is, don’t rule something out that you think won’t give you inspiration. I’m proven wrong time and again when I think “there’s nothing for me there” or in doing this, that or the other thing. Find inspiration wherever you go. Don’t just stumble upon it, seek it out. It keeps your mind alive.

That being said, go spend the next four hours staring at Pinterest recipes.

But mostly, I just watched Tristan. Tonight he wore his signature black leather pants, which clung dangerously low below his hipbones. They ended in black combat boots that were casually untied. He topped the outfit off with a black T shirt adorned with an intricate white pattern, front and back, that clung like a second skin. His eyes were heavily rimmed with black liner and his hair hung in his face, down on his chest and back. It swung around him as he roamed all over the stage. His fingers moved over his guitar seductively, teasing it, bringing it to the brink of hysteria then coaxing it back down to a purr. Almost as if he was making love to it. —Immortal Dilemma

As soon as I saw this picture, all I could think was THERE HE IS. Tristan. The main male character from Immortal Dilemma. My Tristan has a sleeve of tattoos on his left arm and his hair is possibly longer (hard to tell in this picture). But otherwise, it’s him. I enjoy him tremendously so I wanted to share my findings with Deadly Ever After.

I found this photo through Pin Queen 1369, who also has a awesome pinterest full of sexiness. It’s not safe for work in any way shape or form, but what fun is? Pour yourself a glass of wine and enjoy what she’s got to offer.